The Princess Bride  The Hetalia Abridged Version
by Raisinworths
Summary: READ AT YOUR OWN RISK!    Disclaimer once and for all, Hetalia and The Princess Bride don't belong to me. That's why it's a fanfiction.
1. Introduction

The Princess Bride

Introduction: Hetalia (World Series) – The Abridged Version.

Chapter One: Introduction

**Skip this, if you suppose my attitude will cause you affront.**

(_**You may also read the last paragraph of this chapter, it is only one long sentence. Also, get used to my parentheses.)**_

I was disappointed by the movie.  
>Take into consideration I was aware it would, even though I started with an open mind. This film came out at 1987; I was born a little less than a decade after that. It was lovely.<br>Yes, I was disappointed. Why? Goldman's version, if you hadn't yet known, was abridged of S. Morgenstern's, a true Florinese. If you hadn't yet known, 'the abridged version' means 'the good parts version', and that would be William Goldman's words, not mine. I couldn't have placed it any more precisely, anyway.

It's a tale of derring-do, 'true love and high adventure'. 'Classic', indeed. I read the book first; my grave mistake. The misstep that was taken before I had any means to take any (the one that first ruined me) was none done on my part. It was my father's. Him having read the book, and watched the movie, my father related it to me, one sleepy night when I asked for a story. Never a better, next to his original tales of 'Young Wonder'.  
>I had a vivid imagination, even then. I love reading, but I was into it first because of my love for stories. If a book had pictures, I could always make them move. If a book had none, I had my mind.<br>Needless to say (I should think), it caught, and stuck. I eventually tucked it into the back of my mind, because no matter my differences I was also a child of my generation. Years later (less than a week ago, I admit), I picked up the book, and started to read.

Even less than that ago, my father foraged into difficult uncharted territory; the internet, just to look for something I currently couldn't be bothered with ( a girl I was involved with had just decided that we were to stay friends, albeit special ones, and if that's not enough for you, it wasn't for me, either. As a teen, I took my time to complain, as that is what we are good at)- a link to watch The Princess Bride.

Three paragraphs of varying length, we return to my point. Fezzik, in the first part, came off with a French accent. Also, he was not as big as he should have been, Westley not as handsome, the Sicilian not as cunning, and Buttercup not as pretty.

I shall chalk it up to me being a child of this generation, because if she was the most beautiful woman to walk Florin as of a hundred years (_that was most definitely in the book)_, then Florin must have been small and not as sweeping as Goldman made it out to be.

They skipped many parts. Not just as Goldman did; his was justified (albeit in his mind, and not Stephen King's, but I wasn't a fan of his, anyway. Call it sacrilege. I call it a right to have my own preferences) in removing Morgenstern's praise of trees (that should have a book of its own. I don't begrudge him, I've been known to do the same) and cutting Buttercup's princess training, and how she became an actual princess, or how Westley became 'farm boy'. He believed it would help keep from distraction of the 'true love and high adventure', so I'll let him have that. But the movie production skipped parts from Goldman's version. They skipped parts from the good parts version.

I wouldn't have understood it, if I hadn't read the book. Humperdinck, for one. I wouldn't have known he was he if I hadn't read the book. I wouldn't have known Vizzini to be clever, or the extension of the Count's part (among other things, but that's not the point. I've strayed too much, anyway). I just have to say, they downgraded my favorite part; Inigo's history. Oui, Bonetti, Thibault, Capo Ferro – I'd reread it and reread it au fait, only to be disappointed.

Also, the fall was ridiculous.

So to endure the movie, because I wanted to pay respect to the story which I had fallen in love with, I let my mind wander. I let my mind's eye change what was in front of me. Instead of a too-small giant with messy hair, I saw a big, brawn but out of character Sadik Adnan. Oh, kill me now ( I give you permission). I am not me if I didn't imagine Arthur and Antonio exchanging banter (I replayed the scene and closed my eyes to listen).

**So, to the determined readers who have made it through to this two-page display of my attitude, I give you The Princess Bride; The Hetalia Version.**


	2. Chapter 1: Primarily on Potential

**The Princess Bride: The Hetalia Abridged Version  
>Chapter One: Being Barely in the top Twenty, and Primarily on P<strong>**_otential_**

The year that Elizabeta was born, the most beautiful woman in the world was a Seychellois maid named Seles. She worked in Paris for the Duke and Duchess Bonnefoy, and it did not escape the Duke's notice that someone extraordinary was polishing the pewter. His notice, in turn, was not unnoticed by the Duchess Nicolette, and though not very rich was beautiful and plenty smart. She set about studying Seles and in time, discovered her adversary's tragic flaw;

Fish.

Overnight the Palace de Bonnefoy became a cornucopia of freshwater fish, saltwater fish, all such manner of scaly seafood, from sharksfin in the drawing room to tuna and kippers in the servant's den.

Seles never had a chance. In one season, she went from delicate to mammoth, and the Duke Francis never once more glanced at her without sad bewilderment in his eyes. (Seles only became happier with the change, eventually marrying a strapping fisherman and they both ate lots of fish until they each died of fishbone in their throats.)

The year that Eli turned ten, the most beautiful woman lived in Taiwan, the daughter of a successful tea merchant. The girl was Meimei, and her skin was of the peaches and cream perfection unseen in Asia for eighty years. She was nineteen when the pox plague hit Taiwan. The girl survived, though her skin did not.

When Eli was fifteen, Alice of London, was easily the most beautiful creature. She was twenty, and so far did she outdistance the world that it seemed she would be the most beautiful for many, many years. But then one day, one of her suitors (she had 143 of them) exclaimed that without question Alice must be the most ideal item yet spawned. Alice, flattered, began to ponder on the truth of her statement. That night in her room, she examined herself pore by pore and strand by strand, and by morning came to the conclusion that through no real fault of her own, she was, indeed, perfect.

Strolling through the family rose gardens watching the sun rise, she felt happier than she had ever been. "Not only am I perfect," she said to herself. "I am probably the first perfect person in the whole long history of the universe. Not one iota of me could stand improving, how lucky I am to be perfect and rich and sought after and sensitive and young, and…"

Young?

Well, of course, she'd always be sensitive, and always rich, but how could she manage to stay young? And if she could not do even that, how could she stay perfect? And if she wasn't that, what else was there?  
>Alice's brow for the first time began to furrow, and furrow it did for months, as she had begun to fret. The first worry lines appeared within a fortnight; the first wrinkles within a month, and before the year was out, creases abounded. She married soon thereafter the selfsame man who accused her of sublimity, and gave him merry hell for many years.<p>

Eli, of course, at fifteen, knew none of this. And if she had, she wouldn't have cared at all – being barely in the top twenty and primarily on _potential-_ she hated to wash her face, loathed the area behind her ears and refused to comb her hair. What she liked to do, most of all was ride her horse and taunt the farm boy.

The horse's name as "Horse" and it came when she called it, went where she steered it and did what she told it. So did the farm boy. Actually, he was more of a young man now, but he had been a farm boy when, orphaned, he had come to work for her father and Eli referred to him that way still. "Farm boy, fetch me this"; "Get me that, Farm Boy, quickly, lazy thing, trot now or I'll tell Father."

"As you wish."  
>That was all he ever answered. "As you wish." Fetch that, Farm Boy. "As you wish." Do that, Farm Boy. "As you wish."<br>He lived in a hovel by the animals, keeping it clean and reading when he had candles. "I'll leave him an acre in my will," Eli's father was fond of saying.  
>"You'll spoil him," Eli's mom always answered.<br>"He's slaved for many years; hard work should be rewarded." Then, rather than continue the argument, they would both turn on their daughter.

"You didn't bathe," said Father.  
>"I did, I did," from Eli.<br>"Not with water, you reek like a stallion."  
>"I've been riding all day."<br>"You must bathe, Elizabeta." That was her mother. "The boys don't like their girls to smell of the stables."  
>"Oh, the <em>boys<em>!" Eli exploded. "I do not care about the 'the boys'. Horse loves me and that's sufficient, thank you," She said that speech aloud, and she said it often. But like it or not, things were about to happen.

Shortly after her sixteenth birthday, Eli realized that it had now been more than a month since any girl in the village had spoken to her. She had never been much close to girls, so the change was nothing sharp, but at least before there were head nods exchanged in the village or when riding along, but now, for no reason, there was nothing. A quick glance away upon her approach, that was all.

Eli cornered Bella one day at the chocolatier's and asked about the silence. "I should think, after you've done, you'd have the courtesy not to pretend to ask," came from Bella.  
>"And what have I done?"<br>"What? _What? …_ You've stolen them." And with that, Bella fled, but Eli understood; she knew who "them" was.

The boys.

The village boys.

The beef-witted featherbrained rattleskulled clodpated dim-domed noodle-noggined sapheaded lunk-knobbed _boys._

How could anybody accuse her of stealing them? Why would anybody _want_ them anyway? What good were they? All they did was pester and vex and annoy. "Can I brush your horse, Eli?" "Thank you, but the farm boy does that." "Can I go riding with you, Eli?" "Thank you, but I really do enjoy myself alone." "You think you're too good for anybody, don't you, Eli?" "No; no I don't. I just like riding by myself, that's all."

But throughout her sixteenth year, even this kind of talk gave way to stammering and flushing and pig-stinking questions about the weather. "Do you think it's going to rain, Eli?" "I don't think so; the sky is blue." "Well, it might rain." "Yes, I suppose, maybe." "You think you're too good for anybody, don't you, Eli?" "No, I just don't think it's going to rain, that's all."

At night, more often than not, they would congregate in the dark beyond her window and laugh about her. She ignored them. Usually the laughter would give way to insult. She paid them no mind. If they grew too damaging, the farm boy handled things, emerging silently from his hovel, thrashing a few of them, sending them flying. She never failed to thank him when he did this.

"As you wish," was all he ever answered.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Author's Note. Hey.<strong>_

_I've decided to leave the parentheses to Goldman, though it's true I've deducted a lot of them. I suggest everyone read the original book, it's much funnier. Though this has some of that, that's because it's Abridged - which is a fancy way of saying I just retyped most of it and changed the names and desperately tried to add some of my personality, which is rather difficult to include in an Abridgement, I realise, so I will cry and retreat to FictionPress and take another almost year before I update._

_Unless you review._

_Oh yes, thank you for them! I honestly abandoned this account, I really did try, but I opened up my dead email account the other day and well, here your reviews here. And I guess since I am appreciated here, I should go where I'm appreciated and at least manage this chapter._

_**On the characters:**_

_Elizabeta becomes Buttercup!  
>And yes, Arthur is Westley. I know it's not a canonfanon pairing, but believe me, I had my reasons.  
>Bella, is Belgium, Meimei is Taiwan and the successful tea merchant that is her father is China. Alice is fem!Iggy, and there's Seychelles and the French. <em>

_Thank you._


	3. Chapter 2: Wherein Cows are Fed

**Chapter Two: Wherein Cows are Fed**

When Elizabeta was almost seventeen, a man in a carriage came to town and watched as she rode for provisions. He was still there upon her return, peering eerily. She paid him no mind, and she didn't need to. The man by himself wasn't important. However, he marked a turning point; other men had gone out of their way to catch sight of her; others had ridden twenty miles for this privilege, as this man had. The importance here was this was the first rich man who had bothered to do so. It was this man, his name lost to antiquity, who mentioned Elizabeta to the Count.

The land of Hetalia was set between where Sweden and Germany would eventually settle. (This was before Europe.) In theory, it was ruled by King Holy Rome and his second wife, the Queen. But in fact, the King was barely hanging on, could only rarely tell day from night and basically spent his time in muttering. He was very old, every organ had long since betrayed him, and most of his important decisions regarding Hetalia had a certain arbitrary quality that involved bananas in tutus and monkeys riding balloons that bothered many of his leading citizens.

Prince Roderich actually ran things. If there had been a Europe, he would have been the most powerful man in it. Even as it was, nobody within a thousand miles wanted to mess with him.

The Count was Prince Roderich's only confidant. His last name was Zwingli, but no one needed to use it. He was the only Count in the country, the title having bestowed to him by the Prince as a birthday present years before at, naturally, one of the Countess' parties.

The Countess Zwingli was considerably younger than her husband. All of her clothes came from Paris (This was after Paris) and she had superb taste. (This was after taste, too, but only just. And since it was such a new thing, since the Countess was the only lady in all of Hetalia to possess it, is it any wonder she was the leading hostess of the land?) Eventually, her passion for fabric and face paint caused her to settle permanently in Liechtenstein, where she ran the only salon of international consequence.

For now, she busied herself simply sleeping on silk, eating on gold and being the single most feared and admired woman in Hetalian history. If she had figure faults, her clothes concealed them, if her face was less than divine, it was hard to tell once she got done applying substances. In sum, the Zwinglis were Couple of the Week in Hetalia, and had been for many years…

* * *

><p>"Quick, quick, come!" Eli's father stood in his farmhouse, staring out the window.<br>"Why?" Said mother. She gave away nothing when it came to obedience.  
>The father made a quick finger point. "Look."<br>"You look, you know how."

They did not exactly have a happy marriage, all they ever dreamed of was leaving each other. Eli's father shrugged and returned to the window.

"Ahhh." He said, after a while.  
>"Ahhh," later again.<p>

The mother looked up from her cooking.

"Such riches," said the Father.

The mother looked up from her sewing.

"Glorious," Father continued.

The mother hesitated, then put her laundry down.

"The heart swells at the magnificence," the father muttered loudly.  
>With a prodigious sigh, the mother abandoned her writing. "What exactly is it?"<br>"You look, you know how."  
>"Donkey," the mother said, and approached the window. A moment later she was going 'Aahh', right along with him.<p>

They stood there, the two of them, tiny and awed.

From setting the dinner table, Eli watched them.

"They must be going to meet Prince Roderich someplace," Eli's mother said.  
>The father nodded. "Hunting. That's what the Prince does."<p>

Eli came close and stood behind them, staring over them, and she was gasping too, because the Count and the Countess and all their pages and soldiers and servants and courtiers and champions and carriages were passing by the cart track at the front of the farm.

The three stood in silence as the procession moved forward. Elizabeta's father was a tiny mutt of a man who had always dreamed of living like the Count. He had once been two miles from where the Count and Prince had been hunting, and until this moment that had been the high point of his life. He was a terrible farmer, and not much of a husband either. There wasn't really much in this world he excelled at, and he could never quite figure out how he happened to sire his daughter, but he knew, deep down, that it must have been some kind of wonderful mistake, the nature of which he had no intention of investigating.

Elizabeta's mother was a gnarled shrimp of a woman, thorny and worrying, who had always dreamed of somehow just once being popular, like the Countess was said to be. She was a terrible cook, an even more limited housekeeper. How Eli slid from her womb was, of course, beyond her. But she had been there when it happened; that was enough for her.

Eli herself, standing half a head over her parents, still holding the dinner dishes and smelling of Horse, only wished the procession wasn't so far away so she could see if the Countess' clothes were really all that lovely. As if in answer to her request, the procession turned and began entering the farm.

"Here?" The father managed. "Istenem, why?"  
>Eli's mother whirled on him. "Did you forget to pay your taxes?"<br>"Even if I did, they wouldn't need all _that_ to collect them," he said, glibly. "What could they want to ask me about?"  
>"Go and see," his wife told him.<br>"You go. Please."  
>"No, you. Please."<br>"We'll both go."  
>They both went, trembling…<p>

"Cows," the Count said, when they reached his golden carriage. "I want to speak of your cows." He spoke from inside, his face darkened by shadow.  
>"My cows?" Eli's father repeated.<br>"You see, I'm thinking of starting a dairy of my own, and since your cows are known throughout the land as being Hetalia's finest, I thought I might pry your secrets from you."

"My cows," Elizabeta's father managed to repeat, hoping he was not going mad. Because the truth was, and he knew it well, he had terrible cows. For years, nothing but complaints from the people in the village. If anyone else had had milk to sell, he would have been out of business in a minute. Now granted, things had improved since the farm boy had come to slave for himno question, the farm boy had certain skills, and the complaints were quite nonexistent nowbut that didn't make his the finest cows in Hetalia. Still, you didn't argue with the Count. Elizabeta's father turned to his wife. "What would you say my secret is, my dear?" he asked.

"Oh, there are so many…" She said she was no dummy, not when it came to the quality of their livestock.

"You two are childless?" The Count asked, then.  
>"No, sir," the mother answered.<br>"Then let me see her, perhaps she will be quicker with answers than her parents."  
>While the father called Elizabeta, his wife opened her mouth to ask, "How did you know we had a daughter?"<br>"A guess. I assumed it was one or the other. Some days, I'm luckier than-"

And he stopped talking. Because Eliza moved into view, out the door and walking to the carriage. The Count gracefully stood from his carriage, moved to the ground and stood very still.

"Curtsy, dear," Eli's mother whispered.  
>Eli did her best. The Count could not stop looking at her.<p>

Understand now, she was barely rated in the top twenty; her hair was uncombed, unclean; her age was just seventeen, so there was still, in occasional places, the remains of baby fat. Nothing had been done to her. Nothing was there save for potential.

But the Count could not rip his eyes away.

"The Count would like to know the secrets behind our cows' greatness, is that not correct, sir?"  
>Elizabeta's father said.<br>The Count only nodded, staring.  
>Even Elizabeta's mother noted a certain tension in the air.<br>"Ask the farm boy; he tends them," Elizabeta said

"And is that the farm boy?" came a new voice from inside the carriage. Then the Countess's face was framed in the carriage doorway.

Her lips were painted a perfect red; her green eyes lined in black. All the colors of the world were muted in her gown. Eli wanted to shield her eyes from the brilliance.

Eli's father turned to the lone figure peering around the corner of the house. "It is,"  
>"Bring him to me."<br>"He is not dressed properly for such an occasion!" Eli's mother blustered.  
>"I have seen bare chests before," The Countess. Then she called out to the Farm Boy. "You! Come <em>here<em>!", that last word punctuated with a snap of her fingers. It seemed incongruous, for the Countess was a small and delicate thing, with an even more delicate voice. Farm Boy obeyed. The Countess, in all her decadence, abandoned the carriage to meet him. He was ashamed of his attire; worn boots, torn blue jeans and his hands were tight together in a sad gesture.

"Have you a name, Farm Boy?"  
>"Arthur, Countess."<br>"Well, Arthur, perhaps you can help us with our problem." She approached so close, her gown grazed his skin. Now the Countess wore heels, and hidden under her dress they were the primitive type, designed to keep her dainty feet from filth. Still, she did not even match up to his chest. "We are all of us here _passionately_ interested in the subject of cows. We are practically reaching the point of frenzy, such is our curiosity. Why is it, Arthur, that the cows in this farm are the finest in all Florin? What do you do to them?"

"I just feed them, Countess."

"Well then, there it is, the mystery is solved. Clearly, the magic is Arthur's feeding." She gave Arthur a haughty glance, as if she was the one of more pronounced height, not he. "Show me how you do it, would you, Arthur?"  
>"Feed the cows for you, Countess?"<br>"Bright boy."  
>"When?"<br>"Now will be soon enough," and she held out her arm to him.  
>Arthur had no choice but to take her arm. Gently. "It's behind the house, madam; it's muddy back there. Your gown will be ruined."<br>"I wear them only once, Arthur, and I _burn_ to see you in action." Here she gave him an uncomprehendingly adorable look, one that simply said 'I am adorable and young and rich and so you must do what I say.'  
>So off they went to the cowshed.<p>

Throughout all this, the Count was watching Elizabeta.  
>"I'll help you," Eli called after Arthur.<br>"Perhaps I'd best just see how he does it," the Count decided.

"Strange," Eli's parents said. And off they went too, bringing up the rear of the cow-feeding, watching the Count, who was watching their daughter, who was watching the Countess.

Who was watching Arthur.

* * *

><p><strong><em>Author's Note. Sorry if anyone got multiple alerts.<em>**

_Well, there. The Countess and his wife are the Zwinglis. Oh, I know, they're siblings, but they're not in this fanfiction, huff. Besides, you'll realize later, I do believe it fit.  
>I implore you, no matter how OOC Liechtenstein may be, at least you can imagine her form as the countess, and to me at least, it was enough for a laugh. I do think that a lot of characters will be acting strange – I apologize in advance!<em>

_Thank you, everyone for all your comments.  
>IrishMaid – I notice you don't have an account, so I'll reply here. And thank you! That's high praise! You're right about that – another, more relatable distinction, would be the new Les Miserables film. It's different from the musical, aside from the more obvious parts like how there are less songs and how certain events were manipulated, the focus was brought more to the acting rather than the singing. Anne Hathaway's sniffing on I Dreamed a Dream and Samantha Barks' labored breathing at A Little Fall of Rain is precisely what the directors will try to drum out of you. Yes, there's the element of theatrics, but at a considerably lesser extent. Both differ from the book, as well, because the book focused more on the story; Eponine's attention to flaunting her education and writing skills, and the <em>time_- among other things. So yes, books will be different from film and from musicals and from other adaptations. All of them beautiful. _

_Wow! That was a mouthful. Thank you everyone!_


	4. Chapter 3: It Must Be His Teeth

**Chapter Three: It Must Be His Teeth**

"I couldn't see what was so special. He just fed them." Said Elizabeta's father. This was after dinner now, and the family was alone again.

"They must like him personally. I had a cat once that only bloomed when I fed him – maybe it's the same thing." It was Elizabeta's mother now, scraping the stew leavings into a bowl. "Here," she said to her daughter. "Arthur's waiting by the back door; take him his dinner."

Elizabeta carried the bowl, then opened the back door.

"Take it," she said.  
>He nodded, accepted, started off to his tree stump to eat.<br>"Hey, wait, Farm Boy, I'm not done!" Eli began. He stopped, turning back to her. She searched for something to say, and finally came up with, "I don't like what you're doing with Horse. What you're _not_ doing, more to the point. I want him cleaned. Tonight. I want his hoofs varnished. Tonight. I want his tail plaited and his ears massaged. This very evening. I want his stables spotless. Now. I want him glistening; and if it takes you all night, it takes you all night."

"As you wish."

Elizabeta slammed the door in his face.

"I thought Horse had been looking very well, actually," her father said.  
>"You said so yourself, yesterday," said mother.<p>

Eli said nothing.

* * *

><p>Up in her room, Elizabeta lay on her bed. She closed her eyes.<p>

And the Countess was staring at Arthur.

Eli got up from bed, took off her clothes, washed a little and got into her nightgown. She slipped between the sheets, snuggled down and closed her eyes.

The Countess was still staring at Arthur!

_Why? _Why in the world would the woman in all the history of Hetalia who was in all ways perfect be interested in Farm Boy? There was simply no other way of explaining that look, she _was_ interested. Eli shut her eyes tight and studied the memory of the Countess. Clearly, something about Farm Boy interested her, facts were facts. But _what_?

The Farm Boy had eyes like the sea before a storm, but who cared about eyes? And he had pale blond hair, if you liked that sort of thing. And he was broad enough in the shoulders, but not all that much broader than the count. And certainly, he was muscular, but anybody would be muscular if they slaved all day. And his skin was perfect and tan, but that came again from slaving; in the sun all day, who wouldn't be tan? And he wasn't that much taller than the Count either, although his stomach was flatter, but that was because the Farm Boy was younger.

Elizabeta got sick of tossing and turning and sat up in bed. It must be his teeth. The Farm Boy did have good teeth, give credit where credit was due. White and perfect, particularly set against the sun-tanned face.

Could it have been anything else? Eli concentrated. Well, the girls in the village followed the Farm Boy around a lot, whenever he was making deliveries or on errands, but they were idiots, they followed anything. He ignored them, because if he'd ever opened his mouth, they would have realized that was all he had, just good teeth; he was, after all, exceptionally stupid.

But, then again, it was really very strange that a woman as beautiful and slender and graceful, a creature as perfectly packaged, as supremely dressed as the Countess should be hung up on teeth. Elizabeta shrugged; people were surprisingly complicated. But now, it was all diagnosed, deduced, clear; she closed her eyes, snuggled down, all nice and comfortable and _people don't look at other people the way the Countess looked at Farm Boy because of their teeth._

"Oh," Eliza gasped. "Oh, oh dear."

Now the _Farm Boy _was staring back at the Countess. Feeding the cows with his muscles rippling the way they did and Eli was just watching as the Farm Boy looked, for the first time, deep into the Countess' eyes.

Eli couldn't handle it, jumped out of bed and began to pace her room. How could he? Oh, it was alright if he looked at her, but he wasn't looking at her, he was _looking at her_.

"She's so small," Elizabeta muttered, starting to a storm a bit now. The Countess would never reach up to his shoulders and that was fact. And her dress looked ridiculous out in the cowshed; fact as well. Eli fell onto bed and clutched her pillow; the dress was absurd before it ever got to the cowshed; the Countess looked rotten the minute she left the carriage, with her too big painted mouth and her stupid spindly heels and her powdered skin and… and…

Flashing and thrashing, Elizabeta wept and tossed and paced and wept some more, and it was simply a very long and very green night.

* * *

><p>She was outside his hovel before dawn. Inside, she could hear him already awake. She knocked. He appeared, stood in the doorway. Behind him, she could see a tiny candle, open books. He waited. She waited. He looked at her. She looked at him. Then she looked away-<p>

He was too beautiful.

"I love you," Elizabeta said.  
>"I know this must come as something of a surprise, since all I've ever done is scorn you and degrade you and taunt you, but I have loved you for several hours now, and every second, more. I thought an hour ago that I loved you more than any woman has ever loved a man, but a half hour after that I knew that what I felt before was nothing compared to what I felt then. But ten minutes after that I understood that my previous love was a puddle, compared to the high seas before a storm – your eyes are like that, did you know? Well they are. How many minutes ago was I? Twenty? Had I brought my feelings up to then? It doesn't matter."<p>

Eli couldn't bring herself to look at him. The sun was rising behind her now; she felt the heat on her back and it gave her courage.

"I love you so much more now than twenty minutes ago, no comparison. I love you so much more now than when you opened your hovel door – no comparison. There's no room in me- in this-" Eli gestured to her body- "For anything but you. My arms love you, my ears adore you, my knees shake with blind affection. My mind begs you to ask it something so it can obey. Do you want me to follow you? Forever? I will do that. Crawl? I will crawl. I will be quiet or loud or singing, if you are hungry I'll bring you food, if you're thirsty, nothing but the best wine. Anything I cannot do I'll learn how to; I can't ever compete with the Countess in skills or wisdom or appeal or-"

Elizabeta took a heaving breath.

"-TASTE, and I saw how she looked at you and how you looked at her. But remember, please, that she is old and has other interests, while I am seventeen and for me there is only you. Dearest Arthur… I've never called you that before, have I? Arthur, Arthur, Arthur, Arthur, Arthur, Arthur, darling Arthur, adored Arthur, sweet perfect Arthur, tell me, _tell me_, I have a chance to win your love."

And with that, she dared the bravest thing she'd ever done: she looked right into his eyes.

He closed the door in her face.

Without a word.

* * *

><p><strong><em>Author's Note. Hey.<em>**

_If you laughed any at Eli's tossing and turning and eventual conclusion that it's Arthur's teeth that are remarkable, that's probably because it was _barely changed._  
>Oh yeah, that's right, Arthur's fucking perfect as Westley. Ahooah! Thanks for the reviews. Don't stop!<em>


	5. Chapter 4:Tears and Trees and Turnabouts

**Chapter Four: Tears and Turnabouts**

Without a word.

Eli ran. She whirled and burst away and the tears came bitterly; she couldn't see, so she stumbled, she fell, she slammed into tree trunks, fell some more, got up and ran, and her shoulders throbbed from being hit by so many bloody low-hanging tree trunks hitting her, and the pain was strong, but not enough to ease her shattered heart.

Back to her room she fled, back to her bed, back to her pillow where safe behind a locked door she drenched the world with tears.

Not even _one _word. No, he hadn't the decency. "Sorry," would have done. "Too late," she would've understood.

Why couldn't he at least have said something?

Eli thought hard about that, and suddenly, she had the answer. He didn't talk because the moment his mouth came out, that was it – he was handsome, surely, but dumb. The minute he'd spoken, it would all be over.  
>"Duhhhhhhh."<br>That's what he would have said. That was the kind of thing Arthur came out with, and on a bright day too. "Duuuuhhh, tanks, Eliza."

Eli dried her tears and began to smile. She took a deep breath, heaved a great sigh. It was all part of growing up. You got these little quick passions, blinked and they were gone. Faults were forgiven, perfection found, love fallen into madly; then the sun came up and it was over, chalked up to experience, old girl you get on with morning.

Standing, Eli made her bed, changed her clothes, combed her hair, smiled and burst out again in a fit of weeping. Because there was a limit to how many lies you could tell yourself; Arthur wasn't stupid.  
>Oh, she could pretend he was. She could laugh off his difficulties with the language. She could chide herself for a silly infatuation with a dullard. Truth of the matter was, he hadn't spoken and it had nothing to do with the work of brain cells (or the lack thereof). He hadn't spoken, because really, there was nothing to say.<p>

He didn't love her back. That was that.

The torrent that came from Elizabeta the remainder of the day were not at all any like the ones that had blinded her into injuring her shoulders. They were noisy, hot and pulsed; silent, steady and not all a bother, really, just rolling ones that reminded her that she was and never ever going to be good enough. Seventeen and every male she'd ever known had crumbled at her feet and that meant nothing; the one time it mattered, well, she hadn't been enough. All she really knew was riding, and how was that to interesta man when he had been looked upon by the Countess?

There was a knock on the door.

Eli dried her eyes; "Whoever could that be?" Eli muttered irritably.

Another knock. "Who is it?"

"Arthur."

Elizabeta threw herself on the bed, lounging across it. "Arthur? Do I know any Arth – oh _Farm Boy_, it's you, how droll!" She went to her door, unlocked it and said, in her fanciest tone, "I'm _so_ happy you stopped by. I've been feeling so bad about that prank I played on you, this morning, of course you knew I wasn't for a moment serious, or at least, I thought you knew, but just then when you shut the door I thought perhaps I'd done my jest a tad too convincingly, and poor dear, you must have thought I meant what I said when we both know the staggering impossibility of that ever happening."

"I've come to say goodbye."

"You're going to sleep, you mean, and you've come to say good night? How thoughtful of you, Farm Boy, dropping by to make sure everything's all fine between us, that you forgive me, that's very sweet-"

"I'm leaving."

At last, Elizabeta had run out of fancy. "Leaving?" The floor rippled. She held on to the doorframe. "Now?"

"Yes."

"Because of what I said this morning?"

"Yes."

The Earth was shaking; she felt for sure that the sky was getting nearer and nearer by the minute, grey and heavy –

"I frightened you away, didn't I? I could kill my tongue. Well, it's done, you've made your decision, just remember this: I won't take you back when she's done with you, I've no care if you beg."

He just looked at her. The sky was still falling, bit by bit… it was just a little bit over their heads now. Elizabeta cringed a little, anticipating the heavy weight on her head.

"Just because you're beautiful and perfect, it's made you conceited." She hurried on. "You think people won't get tired of you, well, you're wrong, they can and she will, besides you're too poor!"

"I'm going to America. To seek my fortune. A ship sails soon from London, there is great opportunity in America. I'm going to take advantage of it. I've been training myself. In my hovel. I've taught myself not to need sleep, a few hours only. I'll take a ten-hour a dayjob and then I'll take another ten-hour –a-day job and I'll save every penny from both ten-hour a day jobs save for what I'll need to keep strong, and then when I have enough I'll buy a farm and build a house and make a bed big enough for two."

Eli scoffed. "You're just crazy if you think she's going to be happy in some rundown farmhouse in America. Not with what she spends on clothes."

"Stop talking about the Countess! As a special favor to me! Before you drive me maaaaaaaaaad."

Eli stared at him.

"Don't you understand _anything_ that's going on?"

Eli shook her head.

Arthur shook his too. "You never have been the brightest, I guess."

"Do you love me, Arthur? Is that it?"

He couldn't believe it. "Do I love you? My God, if your love were a grain of sand, mine would be a universe of beaches. If your love were-"

"I don't understand that first one yet." Eli interrupted. The sky was back in its place, all blue and puffy and perfect. "Let me get this straight. Are you saying my love is the size of a grain of sand, and… and yours is this other thing? Images confuse me, Arthur, so this universal business of yours is bigger than my sand? Help me, Arthur. I have a feeling we're on the verge of something _disastrously_ important."

"I have stayed these years in my hovel because of you. I have taught myself languages because of you. I have made my body strong because I thought you might be pleased by a strong body. I have lived my life with only the prayer that some sudden dawn you might glance in my direction. I have not known a moment in years when the sight of you did not send my heart careening against my rib cage. I have not known a night when your visage did not accompany me to sleep. There has not been a morning when you did not flutter behind my waking eyelids. . . . Is any of this getting through to you, Eli, or do you want me to go on for a while?"

"Never stop."

"There has not been – "

"If you're teasing me, Arthur… I'm just going to kill you. Smash your head in with a frying pan."

"What?"  
>"What?"<br>"Never mind, not important. How can you even bloody dream that I might be teasing?"

"Well, you haven't once said you loved me."

"_That's_ all you need? Easy. I love you. Okay? Want it louder? _I love you_. Spell it out, should I? I ell-oh-vee-ee why-oh-you. Want it backward? You love I."

"You are teasing now, aren't you?"

"A little, maybe; I've been saying it so long to you, you just wouldn't listen. Every time you said 'Farm Boy do this" you thought I was answering "As you wish", but that's only because you're hearing it wrong. 'I love you' was what it really was, but you never heard, and you never heard."

"I hear you now. And I promise you this: I will never love anyone else. Only Arthur. Until I die."

He nodded, took a step away. "I'll send for you soon. Believe me."

"You wouldn't lie, Arthur, would you?"

He took another step. "I'm late. I must go. I hate it, but I must. The ship sails soon, and London is far."

"I understand."

He reached out with his right hand. Eli found it very difficult to breathe.

"Good bye."

She managed to raise her right hand to his, and they shook.

"Good bye," he said again.

She made a little nod.

He took a third step, not turning.

He turned.

And the words ripped out of her: "_Without one kiss?"_

They fell into each other's arms.

**_Author's note. Hey._**

**_It's been a while, but I've been busy. And, school _****is****_ coming up, so to the lucky people on the other side of the world… :'c Truth of the matter, I was afraid of continuing this, because I have a complete and utter sense of commitment. Dear me. To…_**

**_Guest: My, my. I thought I'd covered this. Fezzik. Did you read the introduction? I hate to repeat it, so I won't, because that it seems like you didn't get the hint, I'm not just going to give it. Uh-uh. If you read the book.. you don't have to… EVERYBODY READ THE BOOK it would make sense why I am going to do what I am about to do. And it! Will! Be! Bloody! Thanks for reading!_**

**_Hunjess: You gorgeous you. I'm repeating myself, but this is a knockoff. Really. And thank you._**

**_I feel like giving you guys my Fictionpress account, so you can really see me write without a guide, but I haven't made anything of it yet. Soon. O.o Lots of love, and out loud laughter. XOx5 _**

**_S_**


	6. Chapter 5: The Most Beautiful

**Chapter Five: The Most Beautiful In The World**

The first morning after Arthur's departure, Elizabeta thought she was entitled to do nothing more than sit around moping and feeling sorry for herself. After all, the love of her life had fled, life had no meaning, how could you face the future, et cetera, et cetera.

But after about a second of that she realized Arthur was out in the world now, getting nearer and nearer to London, and what if a beautiful city girl caught his fancy while she was just back here moldering? Or worse, what if he got to America and worked his jobs and built his farm and made their bed and sent for her and when she got there he would look at her and say, "I'm sending you back, the moping has destroyed your eyes, the self-pity has taken your skin; you're a slobby-looking creature, I'm marrying an Indian girl who lives in a tepee nearby and is always in the peak of condition.

Elizabeta ran to her bedroom mirror. "Oh, Arthur," she said, "I must never disappoint you," and she hurried downstairs to where her parents were squabbling.  
>"I need your advice," she interrupted. "What can I do to improve my personal appearance?"<p>

"Start by bathing,"  
>"Do something with your hair,"<br>"Unearth the territory behind your ears."  
>"Neglect not your knees."<p>

Undaunted, Eli set to work.

Every morning she awoke, if possible by dawn, and got the farm chores finished immediately. There was much to be done now, with Arthur gone, and more than that, ever since Arthur had visited, everyone in the area had increased his milk order. So there was no time for self-improvement until well into the afternoon.

But then she really got to work. First, a good cold bath. Then, while her hair was drying, she would slave after fixing her figure faults (one of her elbows was just too bony, the opposite wrist not bony enough). And exercise what remained of her baby fat (little left now, she was nearly eighteen) and brush and brush her hair.

Very quickly now, her potential began to be realized. From twentieth, she jumped within two weeks to fifteenth, an unheard-of change in such a time, but three weeks after that she was already ninth and moving. The competition was tremendous now, but the day after she was ninth a three-page letter arrived from Arthur in London and just reading it over put her up to eighth. That was really what was doing it for her, more than anything her love for Arthur would not stop growing, and people were dazzled when she delivered milk in the morning.

Some people were only able to gape at her, but many talked and those that did found her warmer and gentler than she had ever been before. Even the village girls would nod and smile now, and some of them would ask after Arthur, which was a mistake unless you happened to have a lot of spare time, because when someone asked Elizabeta how Arthur was well, she told them.

Oh, she could go on for hours. Sometimes it got a little tough for the listeners to maintain strict attention, but they did their best, since Elizabeta loved him so completely.

Which was why Arthur's death hit her the way it did.

He had written to her just before he sailed for America. The _Queen's Pride _was his ship, and he loved her (That was the way his sentences always went: It is raining today and I love you. My cold is better and I love you. Say hello to Horse and I love you. Like that.)

Then there were no letters, but that was natural; he was at sea. Then she heard. She came home from delivering the milk and her parents were wooden. "Off the Carolina coast," her father whispered.

Her mother whispered, "Without warning. At night."  
>"What?" From Elizabeta.<br>"Pirates," said her father.

Eli thought she'd better sit down.

Quiet in the room.

"He's been taken prisoner then?" Eli managed.  
>Her mother made a "no".<br>"It was Roberts," her father said. "The Dread Pirate Daniel."  
>"Oh," Elizabeta said. "The one who never leaves survivors."<br>"Yes," her father said.

Quiet in the room.

Suddenly Elizabeta was talking very fast: "Was he stabbed? Did he drown? Did they cut his throat asleep? Did they wake him, do you suppose? Perhaps they whipped him dead…" she stood up then. "I'm getting silly, forgive me." She shook her head. "As if the way they got him mattered. Excuse me, please." With that, she hurried to her room.

She stayed there many days. At first her parents tried to lure her, but she would not have it. They took to leaving food outside her room, and she took bits and shreds, enough to say alive. There was never noise inside, no wailing, no bitter sounds.

And when she came out, her eyes were dry. Her parents stared up from their silent breakfast at her. They both started to rise, but she put a hand out, stopped them. "I can care for myself, please," and she set about getting some food. They watched her closely.

In point of fact, she had never looked as well. She had entered her room as just an impossibly lovely girl. The woman who emerged was a trifle thinner, a great deal wiser, an ocean sadder. This one understood the nature of pain, and beneath the glory of her features, there was character, and a sure knowledge of suffering.

She was eighteen. She was the most beautiful woman in a hundred years. She didn't seem to care.

"You're all right?" her mother asked.

Eliza sipped her cocoa. "Fine," she said.

"You're sure?" her father clarified.

"Yes," Eli replied. A very long pause. "But I must never love again."

She never did.

* * *

><p><strong><em>Arthur's Note, hey.<em>**

_Bloody hell, you can't just kill me off! You've just made me shirtless and glistening and fantastic- and you can't just kill me off!_

**Of course I can, this is a Fanfiction; therefore I have free reign.**

_Bollocks. I denounce thee. I DENOUNCE THEE-_

Arthur went off, sulking, to Elizabeta's room to steal a shirt. Eli met him there and shouted at him to get out, because it was very hard to keep in character when she's supposed to think he's dead in the water and rotting if underwater carcasses do and he is distracting her by being alive and shirtless.

**I made that because I realized how 'Arthur' in place of 'Author' is an easily made mistake. Anyways, I know this chapter is a bit late, but I never set a schedule anyway. You all will have to live with this, as you have summer and I have to go back to school. I love you anyway.**


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